Attempted NEET UG in 2013, cracked it in 2023 — this Kerala nurse will be a doctor soon

“I didn’t even check my result for Nursing, but a letter from the official authorities landed on my doorstep and that is how I realised that I had scored that good. I was not thinking of pursuing it, but my parents advised me to go ahead with BSc Nursing from AIIMS Delhi because they thought that getting a degree from such a reputed institute will help me in the future,” she told indianexpress.com.

BSc Nursing — a step on the ladder

Even though Sreelakshmi was not happy with the decision of pursuing the nursing degree, she decided to pursue it with the hope that she will be able to come back to her dream sometime in the future. After completing her BSc Nursing degree in 2018, she started working as a nurse in the trauma care at AIIMS Delhi.

After working for a few years, Sreelakshmi decided to appear for NEET UG once again. “My parents were not supportive in the beginning. They didn’t understand why I would want to leave a job and start from scratch again, so they advised me to instead go abroad for further studies and settle there. But I was adamant about it,” she recalled.

Sreelakshmi with her family

Sreelakshmi then started studying for the NEET UG 2022 while working as a nurse and took a few days’ leave when the exam was approaching. “I studied on my own for the 2022 exam, but that didn’t work out well. I knew the basics and the concept but I scored 590 which was lower than the cut-off. I had one last chance to clear the NEET UG exam, otherwise I would have had to head abroad to pursue my dream,” she said.

After looking at her score, Sreelakshmi decided to return to her hometown in Kerala to prepare for the exam and focus solely on achieving her dream. “I joined a coaching institute in Pala, who gave me a 100 per cent scholarship on the basis of my NEET UG 2022 exam,” she said.

Is coaching important for NEET UG?

Sreelakshmi believes that coaching institutes help nurture your hidden talent, when it comes to preparing for the medical entrance test. The 28-year-old was confident about her basics, and having worked in the medical field for nearly five years, she had real-life experience too.

However, it was the coaching centre which helped her enhance her preparation. “One can definitely clear the NEET UG exam by self-studying, but you need to be very determined and resilient for that. What helped me the most was mock tests that my coaching institute provided me. These mock tests improved my score by 70-80 per cent,” she said.

“There is more competition in NEET UG now and that is causing more stress. NEET is half luck and half talent, so if you are someone who can stay dedicated and determined, self-study might be a good option, but not otherwise,” she suggested.

‘Treatment of nurses pushed me to become a doctor’

After working as a nurse for nearly five years, Sreelakshmi has had first-hand experiences of how nurses are not given enough respect in India. “We study a lot in BSc Nursing and we know our capabilities, but we are still treated badly by patients, and even hospital staff,” she said.

“If you are a nurse in India, you will only be asked to administer injections and patients treat you as if you know nothing. Sadly, that treatment is given to nurses by doctors and other hospital staff too who think that we do not deserve the same kind of respect or dignity. Majority of my friends have gone abroad to pursue medical profession because of this reason,” Sreelakshmi said.

NEET UG 2023 Toppers | AIR 1 |  AIR 4| AIR 5 | AIR 8 | AIR 7 |AIR 10 | AIR 11 | Overall result | Tie-breaker | Analysis

Years of being treated like this further pushed Sreelakshmi to fight for her dream of becoming a surgeon and the pandemic added fuel to the fire. “I worked in Covid wards for months, and the conditions were so bad during those days that we could not even drink a sip of water in a six-hour long shift. But I knew that all of this effort is worth saving the lives of people and helping the needy. That is what further motivated me to become a doctor and help more people,” she recalled.

Sreelakshmi now aims to secure a seat in one of the peripheral institutes of AIIMS, or in Calicut Medical College or Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram.